Last time I squeezed my pocket for some dough to buy MS Office 2003; yeah it hurt. Then, I switched over to Linux, which made my Office 2003 a total obsolete; it hurt again! But then came lights, I started using Open Office and it was very similar to Office 2003 but it was an Open Source software. At the time, I felt like a pirate taking something so wonderful from someone for ... free. It was like, for the first time ever in my life, I was getting away with trouble. For those who are former Windows users, you probably understand where I am coming from. I must mention though, the definition of Open Source is not free as in Freebies. Better yet, Open Source grants the users access to the source code and the ability to alter the code that best fit their applications and uses. So here, Open Source is free as in Freedom and free in exchanging and improving the source code through communities of users and developers alike. Having said that, users of Open Source software are not given a free ride; you and I must chip in a few minutes, hours, days, etc... to share our knowledge and experience to others just as many before us have done willingly and unselfishly. This blog exists to serve that very purpose, sharing knowledge.

Anyway, if you are still here: Thank You. I just discovered IBM Lotus Symphony, a superb alternative to Open Office! It is Open Source. And yes, it is multi-platform! It only took me about five minutes to have it installed in my Linux Mint 10 machine. It is sleek, modern, and fast (much faster than Open Office.) Sounds exciting? Oh yeah.

Oh, did I forget to mention that you can still open all MS Office documents in Symphony? Yes, you can. You can create a new document and save it as the same type as an Office document. In fact, I highly recommend that you continue to keep all of your documents' extensions the same as in MS Office; in this way, your documents can be opened by either MS Office, Open Office, or Symphony.

Click here to visit the IBM Lotus Symphony official site. You can download the application once you register with IBM. I think you can only download the 64-bit version there. If you have the 32-bit machine, click here to download IBM Lotus Symphony 3 beta 4 for Linux.

Searching for free sheet music? You may stop searching now! Followings are links to the sheet music goldmine. Am I a nicest person on earth?

Score on line offers 100% free .pdf sheet music for all types of musical instruments. Virtual Sheet Music, a leading classical music download on the web, provides some free classical sheet music.Free Sheet Music is another site that offer great collection of free sheet music.

This article will soon have a proper new home that best serves its purpose. Until then, it will stay here as a reminder that I must establish a new home for it. :-)

I've been searching for a platform independent music score typesetter until I finally found Musescore. It's absolutely wonderful and licensed under GNU GPL. For Linux users, you should be able to find and install the software via the Software Manager. For Windows and Mac users, just visit Musescore website and download the appropriate file for your platform.

Using Windows operating system has its "perks." These perks come in various shapes and sizes including, but not limited to, trojan, virus, malicous code from non-reputable (and reputable) software makers. Sometimes, just a matter of removing an unwanted software can trigger a chain of unpleasant events that may send users to the other side of sanity, i.e. removal of an anti-virus software. The sad part is: we have to use Windows to run certain applications that we can't live without; specifically, Adobe Dreamweaver is one of those worthwhile applications.

Okay, enough of the rambling! So your computer is ill and the diagnostic was "SuperFetch not running." This article will show you how to re-start SuperFetch.

Click on the Start button, type services.msc at the Start search bar. A Services window will open, scroll down the list to SuperFetch and Start the service if service status indicates that it has stopped. Also, make sure that the Startup Type is set to Automatic before you save and exit Services window.

So what is SuperFetch? In a nutshell, Superfetch has to do with your system performance that pre-loads applications (sort of like system cache) into memory in order to reduce these applications' load times. Thus you can control or reduce the number of applications at start-up in order to improve the system's boot time. Sometimes, one of the many enabled services at start-up is corrupted, which may significantly lengthen the system's boot time. In this case, you must identify the root cause of the problem or isolate the service(s) in question to debug it; this article will show you how to do just that.

If you ever ran into situation where your Windows 7 couldn't start and you didn't create a boot up disk; this post is for you.

Here are the .iso files for 32-bit and 64-bit computers. You'll need to download the appropriate .iso file, burn it to a CD or DVD and boot from it. Note: You will not be able to re-install Windows 7 from the recovery CD; but to recover your operating system after a crash.

So, how to boot from CD/DVD; one may ask. It's simple. When your system starts up, make sure that you press F2 to enter system's bios mode. From the Boot tab, highlight CD/DVD option and move it to the very top (for top priority booting) by either pressing F5 or F6. Of course, when your system is fixed, make sure that you go back to the system's bios and change its booting priority back to the hard drive.